Learning

If we believe we are capable of learning from our experiences and are willing to continue learning about the systems that make up our world as much as our own capabilities that are developed by being engaged in life, then CHANGE is an adventure.

Adults learn much differently from children and so they require different training approaches. Adults are self directed, practical and have more knowledge and life experiences. They learn best in an environment where they are treated with respect. There are various adult learning styles. Regardless of your style, you can achieve better personal and professional growth by choosing the best adult learning methodology. Coaching is one of the most effective adult learning methods. In this method, experienced and knowledgeable instructors or mentors transfer their skills and expertise. Gallacher says “Coaching is a learner driven process, which is facilitated by the encouragement of the coach. He/she uses his/her knowledge to promote your understanding”.

Personal and professional development coaching helps to get you from where you are to where you want to go. The job market, technology and the business world are changing so fast that unless you look for new opportunities and retrain continuously, you will not be able to sustain. Life skills coaching and training can help you reach your maximum potential and prepare you to cope with change even before it is happened. It lends you a hand to achieve your goals and boosts your motivation level to initiate you into action.

There are various training programs, including career planning, development of skills to reach higher levels in your career ladder and personal life, planning strategies essential for career success, people management skills and confidence building. Coaching also helps you to learn from your work. It creates the conditions for ongoing development. You can acquire new skills, progress projects, solve problems, overcome conflicts, motivate your subordinates, establish greater levels of trust and create a positive environment. Coaching focuses on improving the quality of your personal and work life. It helps you to find the right answers for your burning questions like

What do I want to do in my personal and professional life?

What is deterring me from fulfilling my wishes?

What am I going to do to overcome it?

Getting coaching and training can help you feel confident and make you wish to take on a challenge or project, which you were afraid to take previously. It helps you to get more job satisfaction and progress in your career.

You can apply what you have learned in the training program to achieve work life balance, increased productivity and effective communication and leadership skills. The solution focused coaching means the coach or the mentor will work with you to find solutions for many problems.

A perspective for Growth was last modified: September 4th, 2013 by Ronald M Allen

A stimulus or combination of stimuli that is followed by a particular response will, upon its re-occurrence tend to be followed by the same response again. Thus, S-R connections gain its full strength on one-trail (Ormrod, 1999) or on the first pairing of the S-R connection: “contiguity, and not frequency!” (UCONN Department of Psychology, 2006). According to Guthrie repetitions neither strengthen nor weaken the connection already made.

According to Guthrie:

1. Reward and punishment play NO significant role in learning: This is because the reward and punishment are occurring after the association between stimulus and response has been made. “According to this position what arises is a principle called ‘post remity’ which says we always learn the last thing we do in response to a specific stimulus situation” (Brooks, 2006).

2. Forgetting is due to interference rather than time passing:”In other words people have so many stimulus and noise going on around them it makes it difficult to learn or remember a new principle or concept, unless that principle is constantly surrounding them” (Brooks, 2006).

Why do people stop growing? One key reason, I believe, is that they stop taking on difficult challenges. They want to live a comfortable life without the hardships that come with difficult challenges. That, however, is a recipe for mediocrity. Doing that is a sure way to live an average life.

I have often talked about the importance of taking challenges to expand your capacity (here is an example). But I didn’t emphasize enough the fact that the challenges should be difficult.

I realized this when I wrote my first e-book (A Dent in the Universe) and prepared it for self publishing. It was a difficult challenge for me. Writing a book in a foreign language was difficult enough (I’m not a native English speaker), but the rewriting process was even more difficult. On top of that, I still needed to do everything related to publishing the book: finding a proofreader and a cover designer, formatting the book, checking for errors, converting the books to different formats, and so on.

After going through the whole process, though, I realized that I have expanded my capacity. The last time I took a challenge of a similar level was when I developed and published my first iOS app.

Through the whole process, I learned a lesson: if you want to grow significantly, make taking on a difficult challenge a habit.

That, however, is against our nature of doing comfortable things. We tend to avoid difficulties and choose comfort whenever possible.

So what can we do to overcome this tendency?

In his book, Mastery, Robert Greene has good advice: cultivate a kind of pleasure in pain. This is what successful athletes do: they have learnt to enjoy rigorous practice. It’s not easy to do all the hard work needed to become a good athlete, but they have learnt to enjoy the process.

Similarly, you should learn to enjoy working on a difficult challenge. Learn to take pleasure in pain. Having this attitude will give you a strong foundation to grow yourself upon.

A few weeks ago, Bill Gates hosted an Ask-Me-Anything (AMA) event at Reddit. While there were many questions asked and answered, here I’d like to focus on just one of them:

Q: What do you do for fun? I find it hard to fathom how someone like you can just disconnect. Disconnect from the emails, calls, the media. All of it. What would be your definition of a chill and fun day?

A: I love playing tennis. I am an avid bridge player (a card game if you have not heard of it – it was more popular in the past!). I like to tour interesting things with my kids like power plants, garbage dumps, the Large Hadron Collider, Antarctica, missile Silos (Arizona),… I read a lot and watch courses (online or the Learning Company)…

The part I highlighted above states that he loves to read and to watch courses. But what kind of books does he read? To give you an idea, here is a page that showcases them. The question, remember, was about what he does for fun. But, to be honest, I don’t think many people will consider the books on that page fun. As for watching courses… well, I guess it’s quite obvious.

So how can Gates consider those activities fun while many people don’t?

The answer, I believe, lies in an important trait he has that many people lack. The trait is a love of learning. In fact, I can’t think of any other explanation of how someone could consider such activities fun unless the person loves to learn.

There is a big difference between those who love to learn and those who don’t. Those who love to learn will consider activities that widen their perspective (such as reading books) fun. Those who don’t, on the other hand, will consider those activities boring. Those are very different ways of viewing the same activities.

This difference can manifest into a big gap between the two groups in the long run. Those who love to learn will absorb new knowledge like a sponge, while those who don’t will actually avoid opportunities to learn. Can you guess which ones are more likely to achieve their full potential?

Love of learning, I believe, is an essential trait to have. We need to have it. It’s even more true given the fast-changing world we live in now. Those who love to learn are the ones who will be able to adapt and thrive. The reason is simple: they are the ones who enjoy learning new things.

But one question remains: how can we have this trait? How can we love to learn?

As with many other things in life, the main thing is to find the motivation. If you can find it, everything else will fall into place. But if you can’t, it will be hard to get anything going.

From my experience, here is a good way to find the motivation:

Have a strong desire to get the most out of your life

Simple, isn’t it? But think about it. If you have this desire, the love of learning will naturally follow. Why? Because to fulfill the desire you will need to achieve your full potential. And to do that, you need to constantly learn. That’s why if the desire is strong enough, learning will become something you love.

We are still early in 2013, so it’s a good time to think about how to get the most out of this year. While there are several ways to do that, I’d like to focus on just one suggestion here: take a new challenge.

Taking a new challenge is a good way to expand your personal capacity. It helps you grow and achieve your full potential – just doing what you usually do won’t help you grow.

But what challenge should you take? Here are some ideas.

1. Start a side business.

I’m a big proponent of having side projects, and building a side business is a great project to embark on. It’s a good idea because you don’t need to leave your day job; you can keep your day job while building a small business in your spare time. Later, after your business has grown, you can consider quitting your job.

While these are not the only ways, here are some steps to start a side business:

Identify your passions.

Find a way to provide value based on your passions.

Find ways to make money through it.

Take action consistently to build the business.

For example, when I decided to build this blog, I identified two passions of mine: personal growth and writing (step 1). I then decided that starting a blog was a good way to provide value based on those two passions (step 2). To make money with it, I put some ads on the blog (step 3). I then wrote regularly on the blog (step 4).

2. Learn a new skill.

What skills do you think can enrich your work and life? Consider learning at least one of them this year. In my case, I want to learn speed reading, since I believe it will prove valuable.

The skill doesn’t have to be a mental skill. It can also be a physical skill (such as swimming) or an artistic skill (such as playing guitar).

3. Work on a social project.

Is there a cause in your society that you care about? For instance, you might be thinking of helping street children or the elderly. If that’s the case, then you might consider working on a social project. You can volunteer for an existing project or even start your own project.

4. Take an online course.

These days, you can take many online courses to educate yourself. Places like Coursera and Udacity allow you to learn together with other people, and they’re complete with the assessments.

5. Write a book.

If you have been thinking about writing a book, this year could be a good year to actually do it. The rise of self-publishing means that you can get your work directly to the readers without going through traditional gatekeepers such as agents and publishers.

Think carefully about the topic you want to write about, research it, and then write consistently every day. You can later publish the book through places like Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing.

6. Experiment with outsourcing.

You can accomplish so much more if you use others’ time and skills instead of doing everything youself. These days, you can do that by outsourcing your tasks through places like Elance, oDesk, and Fiverr.

Outsourcing takes practice, so you might want to experiment with it this year. Start with simple tasks and go from there. Once you master outsourcing skills, you will be able to multiply your productivity.

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These are some challenges that you can take this year to expand your capacity. Of course, there are many more possibilities out there.

What challenge do you plan to take this year? I’d like to hear from you in the comments.